DESASTER is one of these bands who I have always wanted to see play live. so, as soon as the gig was over, I decided to ask Markus Infernal Kuschke a couple of questions...

1. Well, first off, man, that was a splendid gig, really was! Did you expect Polish maniacs to be so wild? You these guys didn’t disappoint you!

Thank you! It was a great gig indeed, but we should have started with vodka after the gig, hehe! Yeah, I heard a lot about the polish metalheads and in fact they didn´t disappoint us at all! Thanks maniacs!!!

2. Have you ever been to Poland before? Anything special you seen/tasted/experienced? How about Polish women? How do you like our beer? Any good food you had?

No, I have never been to Poland before. It was a too short time we spend in your country (only 24 hours) to really experience something special. What I recognized were a lot of friendly people, great looking women (I agree with Nergal that slavonic women are the best!), good tasting beer and many people with KAT patches and shirts - cool!

3. Tell me dude, why it took so long for disaster to play here in Poland? I am pretty sure you knew before there are plenty of maniacs who would kill to be able to see you play live. I do hope it`ll not take you ages to be able to see you in Poland again?

It also surprised me that it took 28 years to play in Poland for the very first time! Especially in the time when our demos and our debut album came out (1993-1996) I got a lot of letters from Poland and it seemed that the Black Metal scene was really big in the 90s. But nobody contacted us to play in Poland. After 2000 we got a few offers to play, but nobody wanted to afford to pay flight tickets and the local rental car companies refused to give us a mini van to drive to east europe, it seems to be too dangerous behind the former iron curtain, hehe! So we were very glad when we were contacted last year to play on the Black Silesia Festival and we already spoke about some plans with the organizer Michal to return soon!

4. On April 8, 2016 you released your eighth studio album The Oath of an Iron Ritual. Well, it’s been a year now. How did fans react to it?

We got very good response from the fans which is always much more important to us than good reviews in the magazines! Especially some old friends wrote to me that the last album really kicked their asses! Cool!

5. The cover art is taken from Pandemonium by J. Martin, painted in 1841 under influence of John Milton (Paradise Lost). Are you guys influenced by any other things than music? Like, you know, some dark poetry, painting or horror movies?

Everybody in the band has it´s own influences which of course also find their way into our music and „concept“ if you want it to call it like this. We are old farts right now and you can imagine that we read a lot of books and watched many many movies. But the most important influences is still Heavy Metal music in all of it´s kinds! We are total metalmaniacs and Metal is the reason why we wander around this fucking planet. When some art like the great painting of Mr. Martin fits to our music, it´s great, too! But the most important thing is the music, not the things arround.

6. Do you know any Zdzislaw Beksinski`s works. He sadly passed away on 2005-02-21.

No, I´m sorry!

7. What do you think: is there any parallel universe to our real one? Do you believe in afterlife? Are hell, Satan or devil real things? Or is it all just some unreal, fairy-tale like items?

Haha, there are enough bands who deal with the topics you mentioned! Of course I also have my very own thoughts about things like that, but there are enough pseudo-scientists around who bore you with their personal beliefs – I´m hear to talk about METAL! That´s the only thing you can be absolutely SURE about!!!

8. You`ve never denied you do love KREATOR. And you wear their Pleasure to Kill patch on your jacket. You also cover their Tormentor track from their amazing debut album Endless Pain. How do you like their newer, hard for fans to comprehend, albums?

Well, of course KREATOR are another band nowadays as on their first albums. I´m also not the biggest fan of their newer releases and still prefer to listen to the classic albums up to Extreme Agressions. But the latest albums are also not bad and it seems that there are a lot of people who manage to comprehend their music nowadays. Mille and Ventor are really great guys and deserve the success they have today! My biggest wish is to hear Ventor again singing on a new record!

9. Recently re-activated Noise records is going to re-release KREATOR`s first four albums with plenty of bonuses. The cover arts don’t look too good, I am afraid. Have you seen them? How can Noise be talked into not desecrating such great albums, huh? Like Endless Pain or Pleasure to Kill?

Well, I´m sorry I can´t say something to the re-releases because I have the original albums and havn´t seen the new artworks.

10. Your music is very much thrash oriented but it also contains some devilish elements. It all makes your music dark and sinister…yup. What’s dearer to your soul? Thrash or Black Metal?

Hehe, that always depends on the alcohol level I have! If I´m in the „beer mood“ I prefer Thrash – if I´m in the „spirits mood“ my soul cries for some Black fucking Metal, haha! Well, in fact there´s no real formula for the DESASTER sound, it´s a mixture of many many musical influences but at the end Traditional Black Thrashing Metal is the only way we can sound!

11. I am pretty sure you`ve listened to a lot of music through the years. Tell me man, what bands you listen to and what are you most liked ones? Your favourite five albums, please!

Ok, this is the todays´playlist: Slayer-Reign in Blood, Metallica-Ride the Lightning, Bathory-Blood Fire Death, Razor-Executioner´s Song, Iron Maiden-Killers. There are too much to mention! Now, in my older days,I also discover older bands which were too „soft“ for me when I started with Metal in the 80s, for example Deep Purple, Rainbow, Thin Lizzy, Scorpions...this is a great universe to discover besides to listen to the classic Heavy, Speed, Thrash, Death and Black Metal albums.

12. You guys play live a lot, often with young bands, right; any special crews you`ve played with recently? Here in Poland you shared the stage with awesome SLAUGHTER MESSIAH from Belgium and Polish crews BESTIALITY and NEKKROFUKK. Did you see them play? Any other Polish bands beside BEHEMOTH and VADER you know?

Well, no we don´t play live that often nowadays, only 7-10 shows a year! We don´t want to waste our energy too much, hehe! I regret that I missed all the other bands on the festival because I drank beer and Vodka with my bassist Odin and the great polish fans before the show. Other polish bands I know and like are the classics KAT and Turbo as well as newer acts Hell-Born, Witchmaster and Norden.

14. Your stuff gets rereleased now and then. Some are really hard to get, especially when it comes to vinyl versions. Are you planning to re-release A Touch of Medieval Darkness, Hellfire's Dominion or Tyrants of the Netherworld any time soon?

Yes, we are actually working on a re-release of Hellfire´s Dominion! After that A touch of Medieval darkness will be re-released. Tyrants of the Netherworld was re-released on vinyl by Iron Pegasus Records not long ago, I think there must be some copies available! Also check out our Desaster-shop regulary to get the obscure re-releases which sometimes appear out from strange countries, hehe!

15. You`ll have been playing metal for thirsty years next year. Man, time`s flying. Anything special ready for such an amazing anniversary?

Yes, thirsty years is good-hehe! But also thirty years is along time, indeed! My dream ever was to play on a castle, so perhaps this can become reality finally on our 30th anniversary!